Australia Got Tough on Guns —Here's What Happened

Since changing its laws after 1996 massacre, no mass shootings

(Newser)
–
America certainly doesn't have a monopoly on gun-enabled massacres: In April 1996, 35 people were killed in Tasmania, in what was Australia's deadliest mass murder. The country reacted in a way that Will Oremus calls "remarkable": It forged a bipartisan deal just 12 days later that established tough new gun laws. Those laws "worked really, really well," writes Oremus for Slate. One key component, per Oremus, was the buyback of upward of 600,000 semi-automatic weapons, taking about 20% of the country's shotguns and rifles out of circulation.

Among the other restrictions: Would-be buyers had to supply a "genuine reason" for needing the gun they wanted to purchase—and self-defense wasn't a legitimate one. Between 1986 and the massacre, Australia weathered 11 mass shootings; in the years since, there have been zero. (Homicides and suicides by firearms have dropped more than 50% as well.) Some "contrarian studies" emerged, mainly the work of gun advocates, but Oremus notes that they have been "effectively refuted." In the wake of Sandy Hook, "I wonder if Americans are still so sure that we have nothing to learn from Australia’s example." Click to read Oremus' full column.

The debate rages in the US. Can we learn anything from Australia?
(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Here's the actual numbers:
Australian Gun Ban Facts & Statistics
Reasonforforce ^
Posted on Thursday, January 03, 2013 7:48:26 AM by RC one
It has now been over 10 years since gun owners in Australia were
forced by new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed
by their own Government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more
than $500 million dollars.
The statistics for the years following the ban are now in:
Accidental gun deaths are 300% higher than the pre-1997 ban rate
The assault rate has increased 800% since 1991, and increased 200% since the 1997 gun ban.
Robbery and armed robbery have increase 20% from the pre-97 ban rate.
From
immediately after the ban was instituted in 1997 through 2002, the
robbery and armed robbery rate was up 200% over the pre-ban rates.
In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 171 percent

emncaity

Feb 11, 2013 2:49 PM CST

Check the figures, nutbags. The murder rate in Australia is 1.0 per 100,000 people. In the U.S. it's 4.8. Argue with the stats like you usually do, but those are the facts.

XYandZ

Dec 20, 2012 7:20 PM CST

maybe no mass shootings but crime did jump..Australia also forces people to vote and they heavily censor the internet.

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